Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance

by Jaruzel • 4 years ago

2 5 4 years ago

brlebtag• 4 years ago

thank God the "universal language" is a very easy and simpleton language like English hahaha (applying salt to wound).

hilbert422• 4 years ago

As someone who has an excellent command of English as a second language to his native Polish, Jacob Mikanowski has made some excellent points about languages and English in particular, thus it seems to me he is in an ideal position to make critical comment about the language and we native English speakers should heed what he says.

Nevertheless, I reckon that Mikanowski is just a little too polite, for when it comes to such matters we English speakers have thick hides and are rather arrogant about our language and its place in the world. As a group, we take little effort to learn other languages and we lazily rely on the fact that others have taken considedable effort to learn English (and given its idiosyncrasies I often feel sorry for them).

I'm a native English speaker and I'm very glad that I am because I don't consider that I'm very good at learning languages, thus for pragmatic reasons it's good that many speak English as a second language, that way life is easier for me. That said, it's a rather selfish worldview and I reckon it's a pretty typical view held by many of us.

However, I agree with everything Mikanowski has to say. From my own experience and somewhat limited understanding of other languages (mainly French and German) I've learned that a smattering of another language widens one's thinking horizons. Having possession of more than one language not only enlarges one's worldview but also one's cognition is enhanced - as one can draw on multiple perspectives to aid one's thinking. Essentially, multiple languages add synergies to one's thinking processes.

There are expressions and phraseologies in other languages that are not simply conveyed into English or it's just easier to say something in another language. It's why translations are so often only a second best option as nuances in the original language are often lost and sometimes it's even worse in that whole meanings can be altered or distorted†.

English is the ultimate language thief, if a word or expression doesn't exist in English then it's simply lifted from a suitable language and dropped directly into English with such aplomb and ease that it may has well have been there for ever. Unlike French, English has absolutely no qualms or embarrassment at stealing bits from other languages.

What's more, English isn't choosey where it steals from, it'll steal from anywhere, for example, the common English word khaki comes from Urdu meaning dust, similarly tsunami is Japanese for harbor wave. Then there's words like zeitgeist which is German for spirit of the times - right, it's easier to say one foreign word than a whole English phrase.

It seems to me that if the Anglophone world - that is native English speakers, especially those with no foreign language training at all - were a little more humble about the dominance of English then less animosity would exist between them and those who possess different native tongues. Whilst English is the dominant world language, it doesn't necessarily mean that most of those who have English as a second language would wish it were so.

There is no doubt there's a residual arrogance amongst English speakers that's a hangover from colonial days. Instead of learning native languages English colonizers forced colonials to speak English. This arrogance is palpable in highly derogatory comments such as 'if the natives don't understand then shout a little louder'. They certainly haven't won English speakers any Brownie points; right, comments like this are about the worst PR ever. Whilst such stridency is less common nowadays, that superiority complex still lingers from that past era and others are well aware of the fact (for instance, one could never argue that the French were ignorant of the issue).

Moreover, we often see this arrogrance played out whenever English newly adopts foreign words as we native English speakers make precious little effort to pay credence or homage to their origins. We either mangle the words and or mispronounce them.

There's likely no better example of this than the Japanese word tsunami. Despite the translated spelling providing us with a reasonable facsimile of the Japanese pronunciation, almost every native English speaker pronounces it soonami or even worse sooonami. Why? If I were Japanese then I'd be offended and mutter to myself 'damn ignorant English speakers'.

As the English spelling unmistakably suggests, the Japanese pronunciation†† of tsû [katakana - ツ, hiragana -つ] has a sharp sound reminiscent of a hissing snake. I acknowledge that this tsû sound is uncommon in English and that it takes a whisker more effort to pronounce it but if we were more respectful of the its origins then we'd make the effort to do so. After all, it's not hard for English speakers to pronounce it correctly, and soon it becomes automatic.

You'd reckon the (English) 'Language Police' would be onto this like a flash but apparently not.

____

† For example, in translations from German into English - even when taking context into account - I've seen the words glauben - to believe and wissen - to know wrongly interchanged. Whilst similar, these words have logically very different meanings. This is not a subtle mistake but a big one so it's likely just sloppiness on the translator's part or he/she is deliberately distorting the translation for effect. With fluency in another language one can avoid such 'colorations' added by translators.

†† https://www.howtopronounce.com/tsu, https://drmoku.com/how-to-pronounce-the-japanese-syllable-ts....

Jaruzel• 4 years ago

Brilliant comment! Do you have a blog? If not you should!

hilbert422• 4 years ago

Thanks for your praise, it's much appreciated.

No is the answer to your question. I had a website years back but I never considered myself a sufficiently competent writer to hold readers' attention to make blogs a big part of it. Furthermore, for blogs to be successful there has to be some regularly to them or one's audience will vanish - and as my greatest enemy time is always of the essence - I cannot guarantee that.

Nevertheless, from the excessive length of many of my HN posts you'd reckon that time was no object. Well, COVID did provide some unexpected extra time over the last year or so but the main reason I post here is that HN has a ready source of excellent and interesting stories that I can respond to immediately with little forethought. It's unlikely that I'd take the time to write if the stories weren't the mitigating or moving factor.

I write primarily as an aide-mémoire to myself as writing about a subject codifies one's thoughts. And the added advantage of posting on HN is that I have to make what I say legible in case someone actually reads what I've written - I cannot resort to my quasi-illegible bullet points as is my usual wont. :-)

Two things I'm always mindful of when posting, the first is that I'm acutely aware that very few bother to read long posts - but then that's hardly an issue if they're mainly notes to myself. The second is accuracy, nothing mortifies me more than rereading one of my posts days later and realizing that what I've written is garbage and that it'd be better deleted but that I can no longer do so. Fortunately that doesn't happen often.

rurban• 4 years ago

Not because of colonialism, but English of all modern languages is one of the easiest, most regular, simpliest. Best reformed.

Languages turn itself into more similar forms automatically, but many resist for political and traditional reasons. Eg for English we had 2 major reforms before, the 1st and 2nd German Lautverschiebung, with English being the culmination. Simplier tenses, articles, plural forms, harmonized verbs, ... Much less exceptions than in German.

Even simplier would have only been the Hangul reform, modern Korean, which would be one of the easiest to learn new languages. For Aliens, visiting from other galaxies. But for people on earth English being the lingua franca makes perfect sense. Compared to Spanish, French, German, Russian or Mandarin. Well, Mandarin would be even more extremely natural and modern, but unfortunately only the spoken language, not it's written form, the Han kanji. That's the complete opposite.

Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

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